A Case Study on Characters in Pride and Prejudice: From Perspectives of Speech Act Theory and Conversational Implicature

Speech act theory and conversational implicature, as research approaches in discourse analysis (DA), have been applied successfully to investigations in such fields as philosophy, linguistics, psychology and literature criticism. This paper aims to employ a synthesized model of these two theories to make a tentative study of the “literature language” and the characters in the literary work—Pride and Prejudice—to testify whether these research methods contribute to the readers’ understanding and appreciation of this masterpiece. The results of the study show that, to a certain extent, the image of the characters in a particular context in this literary work has been successfully demonstrated in terms of these two approaches in DA and it has been proved that “literature language” can be analyzed by means of DA theories. In addition, the study may contribute to the enlightenment of effective and creative approaches in literature as well as college movie English audio-visual-oral course teaching.


Introduction
Traditional linguists and philosophers argued that a sentence is always used to describe some fact, or state of affairs and, it could be tested for truth or falsity, otherwise it is basically meaningless (Paltridge, 2000).However, British philosopher Austin, and American linguist Searle argued that language is not only used to report, constate or describe things and they developed speech act theory that language is used to do things other than just refer to the truth or falseness of particular statements in books How to Do Things With Words (1962) and Speech Acts (1969) respectively.They named speech acts which perform acts by language to make requests, ask for advice, give warnings, etc. Searle classified speech acts into five categories: representatives (assertives), directives, commissives, expressives and declarations, which greatly enriched and developed speech act theory.
Meaning plays an important role in pragmatic analysis, and in the study of meaning, Morris, Stevenson, Alston and Warnock all claim the analysis of meaning in use, context and intention (He, 2003), on the basis of which, American philosopher Grice (1957) performed the analysis of meaning and intention, and then put forward the theory of Conversational Implicature.Furthermore, in his article "Logic and conversation" (1975), Grice argued that for the specific purpose of communication in the linguistic interactions, there is a tacit agreement between the speaker and the hearer, that is, a principle for interaction assumed to be abided by by the two parties, which is called Cooperative Principle (CP).In discussing CP, Grice subdivided this general principle into the more detailed and explicit maxims.There are four maxims: Quantity Maxim, Quality Maxim, Relation Maxim and Manner Maxim.
Both of the theories have been applied successfully to such researches in different fields as philosophy, linguistics, psychology and literature criticism.It is one of the conventional approaches to study the literature genre and language in linguistics.On the one hand, literature works, as the application of language, have been providing constant material for linguistic researches; on the other hand, theories and researches in linguistic field, in return, have enormously contributed to readers' knowledge and appreciation of literature works.It is one of the most active and creative fields to employ linguistic theories to carry out literature researches, and with the production and development of discourse analysis (DA), especially speech act theory and conversational implicature, as important and effective approaches in DA, there is a new phase for the unification of researches of linguistics and literature.
Many scholars abroad have thoroughly investigated the practicability of the theories in DA such as speech act theory in the analysis of literature works, and found that there is no contradiction between "literature language" and "general language" (Prau, 1977), when they are studied by means of DA's theories.However, in the practical discourse analysis, these DA approaches are widely seen in drama researches and sometimes in the poetry ones, fewer researches have been made on specific literature works, in particular, novels or adapted movies from the perspectives of speech act theory or/and conversational implicature.Since it is identical in the sense of application of language between literary and general ones, we can make a study of the speech acts in novels as we do in other language interactions (Zhu, 2002).

Purpose and Significance of the Study
This study aims to make an investigation into the characters in Pride and Prejudice by means of approaches in DA-speech act theory and conversational implicature, with the purpose of facilitating and increasing readers' understanding and appreciation of the characters and the literature work, and at the same time, as mentioned above, enriching and developing the application of DA research approaches in literature works.What's more, this study aims to help probe the enlightenment of effective and creative approaches in literature as well as college movie English audio-visual-oral course teaching.

Theoretical Basis
Based on the theories proposed and developed by Austin, Searle, & Grice, the theoretical framework of my study is a synthesized one which consists of speech act theory and conversational implicature.

Performatives and Speech Acts
In Austin's book How to Use Words to Do Things, performative is put forward, which indicates all types of utterances can be said to perform acts, such as to give orders, to make requests, to give warnings, or to give advice, and it is called speech act.For example, "Will you open the door, please?"-although it rises as a question, yet it is a speech act of making a request.In terms of speech act theory, utterances can be of two different meanings: one is propositional meaning or locutionary meaning or literal meaning, and the other is illocutionary meaning, or illocutionary force.Grice suggests that statements, i.e., constatives, are merely one kind of speech act, that any statements, if only they are uttered in appropriate circumstances, may be regarded as implicit performatives, which leads to his account: any speech act comprises at least two, and typically three, sub-acts: the locutionary, the illocutionary, and the perlocutionary acts.And the term speech act is most often used to refer to the second of these, the illocutionary act, or force, of an utterance (Paltridge, 2000).According to Searle, in a particular context, the illocutionary force of an utterance is determined by the illocutionary force indication devices adopted, which consists of explicit performative verbs, but more generally, word order, stress, intonation, mood, and punctuation employed; in addition, context is another important factor.
When we speak we do mean exactly what we say-such a speech act is referred to as direct speech act.However, sometimes we perform speech acts indirectly, that is, we often intend something which quite different from the literal meaning of what we say, which is called indirect speech act and was first observed and pointed out by Searle (1969).According to Austin, explicit performatives have performative verbs.The function of such performative verbs, when they occur as the main verb in a present, first person, active indicative sentence, is to make explicit the act a speaker intends to be performing.Explicit performatives are often direct speech acts since they perform their function in a direct and literal manner, for example, "I order you to stand up."In contrast, implicit performatives do not contain an expression naming the act, which are sometimes less clear or explicit to show what act a speaker intends to be performing in uttering sentences.But quite often the context makes it clear what act a speaker intends to be performing.Implicit performatives may still, however, be direct speech acts: the speaker intends the other person to understand and respond to what they say in a literal way, such as "Stand up" (Paltridge, 2000).

Classification for Illocutionary Acts
Having further developed Austin's classification of speech acts, Searle has established five classes of speech acts according to four of the classificatory criteria (He, 1999): (1) Illocutionary Point-the "force" of the speech act; (2) Direction of Fit-the way the speech act fits the world, and/or the world the speech act; (3) The Expressed Psychological State (of the speaker); and (4) Propositional content-what the speech act is "about".And the five basic types of speech act are (1) Assertives (called representatives in Searle 1975)-having a truth value, showing words-to-world fit, and expressing the speaker's belief; (2) Directives-attempting to get the hearer to do something, therefore showing world-to-words fit, and expressing the speaker's wish or desire that the hearer do something; (3) Commissives-committing the speaker to some future course of action, showing world-to-words fit, and the speaking expressing the intention that the speaker will do something; (4) Expressives-expressing the speaker's attitude to a certain state of affairs specified (if not all) in the prepositional content, without direction of fit; with a variety of different psychological states, and prepositional content related to the speaker or the hearer; (5) Declaratives-bringing about correspondence between the prepositional content and the world; thus direction of fit being both words-to-world and world-to-words; and without psychological state.

Conversational Implicature
It has been noted that at the discourse level there is no one-to-one mapping between linguistic form and utterance meaning.In communication, we commonly draw a distinction between what a person's words literally mean and what a person means by his or her words over and above what his or her words literally mean.To discover how speakers know how to generate these implicit meanings, and how they assume that their addressee will reliably understand their intended meaning, Grice in his Logic and Conversation (1975) offered a theory of the intended meaning called conversational implicature.Grice's theory of conversational implicature is basically a theory about how we use the language.He (1975He ( , 1978) ) suggests that the conduct of conversation is guided by a set of assumption of a rational type orientated towards conveying the intended message.These rules are his maxims of conversation which underlie the cooperative use of language, which express a general cooperative principle.According to Grice, the properties of conversational implicature are predictable to a large degree: cancelability, non-detachability, calculability and non-conventionality (Cao, 2003).Grice (1975) defines cooperative principle as follows: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged (Cole & Morgan, 1975).

Cooperative Principle
In discussing the cooperative principle, Grice subdivides this general principle into the more detailed and explicit maxims.There are four maxims with the content (Cole & Morgan, 1975) Quantity Maxim-make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purpose of the exchange); do not make your contribution more informative than is required.2) Quality Maxim-try to make your contribution one that is true: do not say what you believe to be false; do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.3) Relation Maxim-be relevant.4) Manner Maxim-be perspicuous: avoid obscurity of expression; avoid ambiguity; be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity) and be orderly.

Case Study in Pride and Prejudice
English novelist Woolf (1986) ever said: among all the greatest novelists, Jane Austen was the most difficult to catch her greatness in the twinkling of an eye.Among her six novels, Pride and Prejudice was the most striking and popular masterpiece, which was first written in 1796 as First Impressions, and was rewritten (and retitled in 1812 and published in 1813).This novel is impressively dramatized under the pen of Austen, with exquisite, witty and humorous language, especially in conversation.Austen was expert at portraying ordinary characters in daily life as remarkably true to life in terms of vivid self-performance of the characters in this work, and she narrated ironically the love story of the heroine-Elizabeth-a charming young lady of middle bourgeoisie, and the hero-Darcy-a rich but very arrogant young man of upper-class.I'd like, in the following part, to extract a conversation between Elizabeth and Darcy to make an analysis of these two characters and their relationship from the perspectives of speech act theory and conversational implicature.The background for this act is that Elizabeth had been hurt by Darcy because he ignored her dignity and pride at the first party, and since then, she disliked him and had prejudice against Darcy.When submissive Wickham appeared in Elizabeth's life, she was enchanted by him at once and began to believe his evil words about Darcy, which deepened her misunderstanding and bias against Darcy.The conversation extracted below happened at another party held by the Bingleys (Darcy's friends), with the absence of Wickham.

Analysis
Recovering himself, however, shortly, Dancy turned to his partner, and said, "Sir William's interruption has made me forget what we were talking of."(1) Darcy's utterance (1) is an implicit performative and an indirect speech act with the directive illocutionary force and conversational implicature that he intended to arouse Elizabeth's interest in picking up the topic again after Sir William's unexpected interruption instead of just stating such a fact that he forgot the subject they had talked about.
"I do not think we were speaking at all.(2) Sir William could not have interrupted any two people in the room who had less to say for themselves.(3) We have tried two or three subjects already without success, and what we are to talk of next I cannot imagine.( 4)" Elizabeth's utterance (2), ( 3) and ( 4) are representative and direct speech acts, among which ( 2) is an explicit performative and (3), (4)-implicit performatives.What Elizabeth said denied the literal meaning of utterance (1) by Darcy in a strongly unfriendly and ironical tone.In this adjacency pair, utterance (2) and (3) have flouted the maxim of quality in Conversational Principle, in which Elizabeth failed to make true contribution one, that is, she said something unreal.Utterances (2), ( 3) and ( 4) themselves are self-contradictory and have revealed Elizabeth's unfriendliness, even hostility towards Darcy.
Utterance (5) by Darcy is an indirect speech act with a Wh-question as the IFID-illocutionary force indication devices, which indicates Darcy still, politely and sincerely, wished to continue with the conversation with Elizabeth in spite of her hostility.It is also an implicit performative and directive illocutionary force-a suggestion of a topic.
" .-Iam sure we never read the same, or not with the same feelings.( 7)" Utterances ( 6) is a direct commisive speech act, which is expressed in a very brief and arbitrary way resolutely refusing Dancy's proposal.And the following one, utterance (7), an indirect representative illocutionary force, which once again declined Darcy's polite proposal and intention.Both of the parties adhere to the CP in this question-answer adjacency pair, and utterance (7) uses an explicit performative marker-I am sure-to meet the maxim of quality.
"I am sorry you think so (8); but if that be the case, there can at least be no want of subject ( 9).-We may compare our different opinions.( 10)" Utterance ( 8) is a direct expressive illocutionary force to express his regretful mentality; utterance (9)-an indirect directive of request for further talking, and in order to meet the maxim of relation, indicating a change of topic, for the device-but if that be the case-is used to suggest that the speaker is aware the discussion has drifted to some irrelevant topic and he wants to get back to the subject at hand.Utterance (10) by Darcy is an indirect speech act, implicit performative and a directive illocutionary force-a request and also a piece of advice, suggesting Elizabeth to go on with the subject of "book".

"No (11)-I cannot talk of books in a ballroom (12); my head is always full of something else (13)."
Elizabeth's utterance ( 11) is a direct commissive; (12) and ( 13) are direct representatives with the real purpose of refusing Darcy's further suggestion, and at the same time, in my personal view, ( 12) and ( 13) are also indirect directives, indicating her unwillingness to talk to Darcy anymore and her intention to ask the other party to quit speaking.
"The present always occupies you in such scenes, -does it?( 14)" said he, with a look of doubt.
Darcy's utterance ( 14) is an indirect speech act by mean of an interrogative sentence as an IFID; it is also a representative illocutionary force with a doubtful tone.It is a violation of quality maxim in response to utterance (13), because Darcy said that which he lacked adequate evidence for or even was something false, that is, he was not sure at that moment, what was the real reason for Elizabeth's refusal to talk about books-his existence and the present ballroom surroundings, or something else absent which distracted Elizabeth from the present talking; anyway, Darcy could clearly realize the lady was unfriendly and indifferent to him.
" Yes,always (15)," she replied, without knowing what she said, for her thoughts had wandered far from the subject, as soon afterwards appeared by her suddenly exclaiming, "I remember hearing you resentment once created was unappeasable ( 16).You are very cautious, I suppose, as to its being created.( 17)" Utterance ( 15) is a direct representative speech act, but it is also a lie, for Elizabeth's attention was carried away from Darcy's question.Utterance ( 16) is another direct representative, and utterance (17)-a direct, representative illocutionary force too with the explicit verb-suppose.Besides, as far as utterance ( 14) by Darcy is concerned, utterance ( 16) and ( 17) by Elizabeth have violated the maxim of relation, as what she said had nothing to do with Darcy's words above, without any device to indicate she intended to change a topic, which fully demonstrated her being absent-minded in this conversation, and at the same time her strong and obvious hostile provocation.
"I am," said he, with a firm voice.( 18) Utterance ( 18) by Darcy, is a direct representative illocutionary force, displaying his unhappy but arrogant personality on hearing Elizabeth's intentional criticism.
"And never allow yourself to be blinded by prejudice?"( 19) Utterance ( 19) is an indirect speech act by using the IFID-imperative sentence, but with a question mark and a rising tone.It is also a representative declaration illocutionary force, which fully shows Elizabeth's sneer and sarcasm with blind prejudice.

"I hope not." (20)
Utterance ( 20) strictly follows the maxim of quality in CP by using the hedge "I hope".It is a conventional indirect speech act for the purpose of being polite, and an explicit representative with the performative verb-hope.

"It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion to be secure of judging properly at first." (21)
Elizabeth's utterance ( 21) is an indirect directive illocutionary force, which reminded Darcy to be attentive to make the first proper judgment since he never changed his opinion.Although there is no explicit performative verb, it can be still detected that Elizabeth tried to admonish Darcy with a strong ironical voice.

"May I ask to what these questions tend?" (22)
Darcy's utterance ( 22) is an indirect speech act, and a directive one to elicit Elizabeth's answer, fully indicating his courteous and well-educated upper-class identity.
"Merely to the illustration of your character ( 23)," said she, endeavoring to shake off her gravity."I am trying to make it out.( 24)" Utterance ( 23) by Elizabeth is a direct speech act by means of ellipsis to make a representative constative.And (24) is a direct commissive illocutionary force, pretending to hide her impoliteness and psychological invasion wittily.

"And what is your success?" (25)
Utterance ( 25) is a direct speech act, with the directive illocutionary force to make Elizabeth inform him of her findings.It shows, to a degree, that this well-educated but arrogant gentleman was a bit annoyed by the aggressive lady.

She shook her head. "I do not get on at all (26). I hear such different accounts of you as puzzle me exceedingly. (27)"
Utterance ( 26) is a direct and representative speech act.And ( 27) is also a direct and representative one, indicating that Elizabeth herself had strong prejudice against Darcy just on account of his foul reputation outside instead of her well-founded judgment.
"I can readily believe," answered he gravely, "that report may vary greatly with respect to me (28); and I could wish, Miss Bennet, that you were not to sketch my character at the present moment, as there is reason to fear that the performance would reflect no credit on either.( 29)" Darcy seemed irritated by Elizabeth, but for his arrogance by nature, he did not reveal his unhappiness.Instead, in an indifferent and calm way, utterance (28) is expressed directly and representatively with the explicit verb-believe.Utterance (29) is a direct directive speech act with modal verb-could for politeness and performative verb-wish-a request-to Elizabeth.

"But if I do not take your likeness now, I may never have another opportunity." (30)
Utterance (30) by Elizabeth is an indirect speech act, because of "may" used in the main clause, and it is a representative too, reporting the fact ironically.Besides, I think it is a commissive, to a larger degree, revealing the reason and the ironical intention of making out the personalities of Mr. Darcy in an aggressive and hostile manner.
"I would by no means suspend any pleasure of yours," he coldly replied.( 31) She said no more, and they went down the other dance and parted in silence.
Darcy's last utterance (31) in this conversation is an indirect commissive illocutionary force, in which he showed his tolerance in a cold way and put an end to the conversation.

Findings and Discussion
In the whole conversational discourse, there are 31 utterances together, among which 18 are given by Elizabeth and 13 by Darcy.In the 18 utterances by Elizabeth, 16 utterances (88.9%)are implicit performatives, and only 2 (11.1%)-utterances ( 2) and ( 17)-are explicit performatives; 12 utterances (66.7%) are direct speech acts and 6 (33.3%) are indirect ones; 12 utterances are representative illocutionary forces, accounting for 66.7%, 4 are commissive ones (22.2%), and two are directives (11.1%).In the 13 utterances by Darcy, 9 utterances (69.2%) are implicit performatives, and 4 utterances (30.8%) are explicit ones; 8 utterances (61.5%) are indirect speech acts, 5 (38.4%) are direct speech acts.There are 7 directive illocutionary force (53.8%), 4 representatives (30.8%) and 1 expressive (7.7%) and 1 commissive (7.7%).See Table 1 below From the statistics listed above, we can see clearly that in the whole discourse, although Elizabeth had prejudice against Darcy, and it seemed that she did not like to speak to this arrogant gentleman, actually, she spoke more than Darcy did, for the reason that she was a witty, smart, eloquent but critical, narrow-minded lady and she remembered being hurt by Darcy's ignorance and she thought it was Darcy who "excluded" Wichham-her Prince.Therefore, she would not set go off any chance to revenge on her "enemy"-Darcy, for his arrogance by nature and the absence of Wickham.Implicit performatives account for the major ratio in both characters' utterances, which to a degree, reveals both of them are well-educated, implicit and expert at making veiled remarks in the conversation.
Let's have a look at Darcy and Elizabeth respectively.The employment of indirect speech act is mainly for the purpose of courtesy.Darcy made more indirect speech acts, especially kind directives such as utterance (1) (5) ( 9) and (10) in the first part of this conversation, for on the one hand, he had strong affections towards Elizabeth and intended to approach her, but on the other hand, concerning his social status, good education and his supercilious personalities, it is impossible to make a direct request towards a young lady who had not good feelings to him.After suffering constant ironical criticism and hostile reaction, in order to defend his dignity, Darcy became colder and colder, and in his utterances, direct speech acts got more in the later part of the conversation, for example, ( 18), ( 25), ( 28) and ( 29).In spite of that, he managed to maintain his good manners in that embarrassing situation by means of such indirect utterances as ( 14), ( 20), ( 22) and (31).
In contrast, Elizabeth's utterances are more direct-( 2), ( 3), ( 4), ( 6), ( 11), ( 15), ( 16), ( 17), etc.-to express her disagreement, denial, refusal and hostile aggression, as a result of her dislike and prejudice towards Darcy.Besides, most of her direct utterances are representatives, showing her arbitrary, stubborn and narrow-minded personalities.Even in the indirect speech acts, a strong sense of irony or resentful, exclusive mentality is fully implied, for instance, utterance (7), ( 12), ( 13), ( 19) and ( 21).With respect to Elizabeth, I'd like to say more from the angle of irony.Most of her representatives (2,3,4,7,16,17,19,26,27,30) are ironical ones.According to Searle (1969), the essential conditions of representative illocutionary force is the speaker, to a different degree, expresses his/her belief on the truth value of the proposition.The intention of the speaker is to make the listener accept the propositional content and its truth value, and the speaker employs irony to achieve the goal by making an opposite evaluation in representative utterances.The communicative purpose of representative irony is just to make the listener accept the implicit prepositional content and believe it is true.In this extracted conversation, representative irony is widely applied in Elizabeth's utterances, which fully demonstrate her contemptible, sarcastic, unfriendly, aggressive and hostile attitude towards Darcy.Moreover, in her directive speech acts, ironical effect is also efficiently demonstrated, for example, utterance (21).
In most interactions, the interlocutors each have an agenda; and to carry out the plan, the illocutions within a discourse are ordered with respect to one another.The effect is to create coherent discourse in which the speaker upholds his or her obligations to the hearer (Cao, 2003).According to Austin's felicity conditions (1962) for the fulfillment of illocutionary forces in conversational discourse, it seems that in this conversation extracted, not all the illocutionary forces are fulfilled successfully.For Darcy's part, he is thoroughly a sincere interlocutor with the purpose of approaching Elizabeth.For Elizabeth's part, however, she seemed try to avoid talking with Darcy by violating the maxims in Cooperative Principle, for example, the violation of quality in adjacency pair (1)-(2,3,4) and the violation of relation in adjacency pair ( 14)- (16,17), but in this literary work, the employment of such figure of speech as irony makes the conversation go on smoothly, which vividly sketched the characters in specific context.As we know, the flouting of maxim will bring about the conversational implicature, and Grice clearly points out that irony, metaphor, and hyperbole are the effects resulting from the deliberate violation of quality maxim in the conversation by the speaker (1975).In addition, a lot of hedges are used to adhere to the cooperative principles in the conversation.As a result, the illocutionary force in each speech act is actually fully fulfilled, and the conversational implicatures are conveyed successfully by indirect speech acts, although Darcy's previous good intention of approaching Elizabeth was not achieved and Elizabeth's hostile aggression was defeated by Darcy's indifferent tolerance in the end of the conversation.It is because of the conflict in this act that the plot of the love story develops smoothly in following part.

Conclusion
This paper has made a preliminary attempt to study the "literature language" and characters in Pride and Prejudice by means of speech act theory and conversational implicature.The results of the study show that, to a certain extent, the image of the characters in a particular context in this literary work has been demonstrated successfully in terms of these two approaches in DA.On the basis of this attempt, we have further proved that "literature language" can be analyzed by means of DA theories.Further research is to be performed for the purpose of not only facilitating and increasing readers' knowledge and appreciation of the literature work but also invoking inspiration to improve literature and college movie English audio-visual-oral course teaching methods to motivate the learning initiative of the students and cultivate learners' communicative competence in practice.

Table 1 .
. Data of discourse analysis of characters' utterances